“Here.” Throwing it on the bed beside her when she sat up, he strode to the door. “I know it’ll only piss you off, but I was trying to do something to make you feel safe.” He was gone a second later.

Shaken and feeling as if something precious was slipping out of her grasp, Molly picked up the document wallet. Unzipping it, she slipped out the page on top. It was a letter from an attorney, summarizing the complex legal documentation behind it. That summary was concise and to the point and it stole her breath.

Fox had set up an irrevocable trust fund in her name with a fifteen-million-dollar endowment. The money was being managed by a reputable financial firm, with the income from the principal accessible to her at any time: income that could never be cut off by Fox or anyone else. A generous percentage of that income would be automatically deposited into her account every month in any case.

The multimillion-dollar principal, on the other hand, would only be accessible to her after she spent at least two years with Fox, the clock having started the day she landed in Los Angeles. The payout would be doubled if she stayed five years, tripled if she stayed ten.

Hands trembling, she dropped the documents to the bed and thrust her fingers through her hair. She wasn’t a shrink either, but she could see what he was doing and it broke her heart. Rubbing the heel of her hand over the organ, she got off the bed and went to find him, eventually tracking him to the gym downstairs. He’d changed into cutoff sweatpants and was lying on the bench press, having just lifted what looked like a ridiculously heavy set of weights.

Not wanting to risk disturbing him mid-press, she waited until he’d successfully cradled the bar, then straddled his body. “Look at me,” she said quietly and, when he went to lift the weights again instead, closed her hands over the bar. “I won’t allow our pasts to mess us up either.”

Expression grim, he said, “You read it?”

“I read it.” Releasing the bar, she cupped his face in her hands, her throat thick and her anger at the hurt done him a feral wildness within. “You don’t have to pay me to stay with you, Fox.”

A shake of his head, his jaw clenched tight. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“If I have to face up to my demons,” she whispered, “so do you.” Somewhere inside her gorgeous, strong, talented rock star was the boy who’d been abandoned by his mother, left to the care of strangers for whom it was a paid task.

The brutal rejection had scarred him in ways she was only now beginning to see—but Molly had no intention of permitting that hurt to fester inside him. “We do this together,” she said. “Don’t you make me walk alone.”

Rising into a seated position, he ran his hands down her back. “That’s the one thing you never have to worry about.”

This time it was Molly who initiated the kiss, Molly who rubbed her body over his, and Molly who demanded. Her pretty blue sleeveless shirt was on the floor in seconds, her bra gone the next instant. It frustrated her that she had to get off him to rid herself of her jeans and panties, but that only took a few heartbeats, long enough for him to kick off his sweats.

Then she was straddling Fox again, reaching down to grip the silk and steel of him, position him at her entrance before he took over, his other hand on her nape.

“Don’t make me wait,” she whispered and, heart trembling, spoke words she hadn’t said to a single person since well before the day her world imploded around her. “I need you.”

“Molly.” Fox pulled her down over his rigid erection, going so deep she felt branded, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her backside.

Molly cried out, found herself kissed with a rough tenderness that devastated her.

“We’ll do this.” Fox’s voice, deep and harsh against her lips. “We’ll make it.” One hand stroking her hair. “Together.”

“Together.”

Into this scary, wonderful journey that had destroyed so many others. Not us, she vowed as Fox’s kiss drew her under. Not us. Fox was hers and she would fight for him.


They were lying on the bench press, Molly on top of Fox, his semi-hard cock still inside her and her breasts pressed against his chest when the woman in his arms stirred. “Beautiful and hot, and mine,” he said, nipping at her jaw, fucking adoring her for claiming him with such sweet fierceness. “Not like property.”

“Sorry.” She shifted to rub her cheek against his, her movements making Fox groan as ripples of lazy pleasure rolled over his body. “I know you don’t think of me that way—and I don’t consider you a lapdog.”

Taking a page out of her book, he ran his hand over her hair. “Sorry. You might have noticed I have a temper.”

He felt her lips curve against his skin, and her response had him smiling even before she said, “I can handle it.”

 “I’ll never say no to being handled by you, Miss Molly.”

“How’s this?” Rising to sit up on his body, she ran her nails over the flat disks of his nipples, a mischievous light in her eyes.

He arched into it. “More.”

She gave him more, her expression telling him she was indulging herself as much as him. “Thank you,” she said after he drew her down to demand a slow kiss that elicited a very female, very delicious sound from her throat.

He chuckled. “I’m that good?”

Sticking out her tongue at him, she tugged playfully at his lip ring. “You do have serious moves”—another tug when his grin deepened—“but I meant for the trust fund. I probably won’t use it for my day-to-day life, but it means a lot to know it’s there.”

She pressed her fingers to his lips when he would’ve spoken, his scowl heavy. “I’ll use it for things like dresses for going to industry shindigs with you, stuff I could never afford on my own and that I’ll need as your date.”

Fox wasn’t happy, but he also knew his woman. “Yeah, okay, but you should know I plan to spoil you. Let me.” He’d never had anyone to lavish with his attention, no one who was his.

Molly bit down on her lower lip. “I’ve never been spoiled before.” A soft confession. “I’m willing to permit it on a trial basis.”

He caught the hint of a smile, knew he was being teased. “Come here, Miss Smart-ass Molly.”

 Kissing and petting her when she laughed but obeyed, he knew that though they’d managed to survive this test, there’d be others that cut deeper, threatened to do more damage. The only thing that might take them through to the other side was the fact they were both proving to be stubborn as anything, willing to fight claw and tooth for what they wanted.


It was on the fourth day that Molly found herself on her own for the first time since her arrival in the country, Fox heading off to attend a meeting about the band’s upcoming tour. “I’m picking up David along the way,” he told her in the garage. “His place isn’t too far from here—we’ll walk over to it one of these days, force him to cook us a gourmet meal.”

“Deal.” Smiling, she fixed his baseball cap so it didn’t shadow those incredible eyes. “Have fun and don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“You have my number, and the numbers of the other guys?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, I don’t think I gave you Tawanna’s.” He took out his phone and sent her a message with the number. “She’s my assistant.” A grin. “My real one.”

“Ha-ha.” She kissed him simply because it made her happy to touch him, to taste his smile. “I’ll probably stay in and go through my e-mails, work on the test pages for my first possible clients.” They’d learned about her via the ads she’d taken out in a few places, then contacted her through the website Charlotte had helped her set up.

So now Anne Webster was (almost) no longer unemployed, Anne being her middle name. If Molly Webster did end up in the media, she didn’t want people to start contacting her for prurient reasons. Anne would quietly go about her work while Molly lived in the spotlight with the sexiest man on the planet.

She kissed that man good-bye, then went up to the poolside patio and knuckled down to work—after first sending Charlotte an e-mail asking her best friend to message her when she was awake and free so they could catch up.

She was just finishing the second set of sample pages when the intercom chimed. Startled out of her thoughts, she walked over to the security panel after realizing someone had pressed the buzzer out by the gate. The chime came again before she’d figured out whether or not to answer. Noah, Abe, and David were all at the meeting with Fox, as was Thea, and Molly didn’t know anyone else in the city.

“Hey, Fox!” came a husky female voice through the speakers. “It’s Kit. I know you’re back! Wake up!”

Molly’s hand froze in front of the Answer button. Who was Kit?

“Hurry up! The damn paps are on my tail.” An infuriated sound. “Dammit, now I’ll have to find the remote you ga—Got it!”

Molly saw the security light turn green as the gate opened, a black sports car with its top down zipping up the drive to halt in front of the house a short time later. Whoever this woman was who had a remote to the gate, she was about to hit the front door—and she might well have a key for that, too.

Taking a deep breath and hoping against hope she wasn’t about to surprise a former lover Fox hadn’t yet told about his new relationship, Molly walked downstairs to open the door. The gorgeous woman on the other side, her skin a deep golden bronze, had a tumbling mass of midnight hair and a flawless body encased in a sleek emerald sheath.

Pushing her Audrey Hepburn sunglasses to the top of her head to reveal striking amber eyes, she blinked. “You’re not the cleaning service.” Lines marring her forehead. “If you’re a stalker, you’re a very not-crazy-looking one.” The statement was followed by the most miniscule pause. “Love the top.” The other woman gestured at the peach top with a softly-tied bow at the throat that Molly had paired with white capris.